The Grell Mystery | Page 6

of the ivory were four

finger-prints. The two centre ones were sharp and distinct, the outside
prints were fainter and more blurred.
"By Jove, that's good!" exclaimed the professor.
Foyle rubbed his chin and handed the weapon to Grant without
replying. "Get one of your men to photograph those and have them
enlarged. At any rate, it's something to go on with. It would be as well
to compare 'em with the records, though I doubt whether that will be of
much use." He drew his watch from his pocket and glanced at it. "Now,
if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I should like to have the room to
myself for a little while. And, Grant, send Green and the photographer
up, and tell Waverley to act with Bolt in examining the servants."
The room cleared. Harding lingered to exchange a few words with the
superintendent.
"I can do nothing, Mr. Foyle," he said. "From a medical point of view it
is all straightforward. There can be no question about the time and
cause of death. Good night,--or rather, good morning."
"Thank you, Mr. Harding, good morning."
His eyes were roving restlessly about the room, and he dictated the
work the photographer was to do with scrupulous care. Half a dozen
times a dazzling flash of magnesium powder lit up the place.
Photographs of the room in sections were being taken. Then with a curt
order to the photographer to return immediately to Scotland Yard and
develop his negatives, he drew up a chair to the couch and began to go
methodically through the pockets of the dead man.
Green stood by, a note-book in hand. Now and again Foyle dictated
swiftly. He was a man who knew the value of order and system. Every
step in the investigation of a crime is reduced to writing, collected,
indexed, and filed together, so that the whole history of a case is
instantly available at any time. He was carrying out the regular routine.
Only two things of any consequence rewarded his search--one was a

note from Sir Ralph Fairfield confirming an appointment with Grell to
dine at the St. Jermyn's Club the previous evening; the other was a
miniature set in diamonds of a girl, dark and black-haired, with an
insolent piquant beauty.
"I've seen that face before somewhere," mused the superintendent.
"Green, there's a 'Who's Who' on the desk behind you. I want Sir Ralph
Fairfield."
Rapidly he scanned the score of lines of small type devoted to the
baronet. They told him little that he had not known before. Fairfield
was in his forty-third year, was the ninth baronet, and had great estates
in Hampshire and Scotland. He was a traveller and a student. His town
address was given as the Albany.
"You'd better go round to Fairfield's place, Green. Tell him what's
happened and bring him here at once."
As the chief inspector, a grim, silent man, left, Foyle turned again to his
work. He began a careful search of the room, even rummaging among
the litter in the waste-paper basket. But there was nothing else that
might help to throw the faintest light on the tragedy.
A discreet knock on the door preceded Waverley's entrance with a
report of the examination of every one in the house. He had gathered
little beyond the fact that Grell, when not concerned in social duties,
was a man of irregular comings and goings, and that Ivan, his personal
valet, was a man he had brought from St. Petersburg, who spoke
French but little English, and had consequently associated little with
the other servants.
Foyle subsided into his chair with his forehead puckered into a series of
little wrinkles. He rested his chin on his hand and gazed into vacancy.
There might be a hundred solutions to the riddle. Where was the motive?
Was it blackmail? Was it revenge? Was it jealousy? Was it robbery?
Was it a political crime? Was it the work of a madman? Who was the
mysterious veiled woman? Was she associated with the crime?

These and a hundred other questions beat insistently on his brain, and
to none of them could he see the answer. He pictured the queer dagger,
but flog his memory as he would he could not think where it might
have been procured. In the morning he would set a score of men
making inquiries at every place in London where such a thing was
likely to have been obtained.
He was in the position of a man who might solve a puzzle by hard,
painstaking experiment and inquiry, but rather hoped that some brilliant
flash of inspiration or luck might give him the key that would fit it
together at once. They rarely do come.
Once Lomont, Grell's secretary, knocked and entered with a